Honey, I Shrunk The Liquorice Allsorts

It’s not because we’re getting fatter and further away – some products really ARE getting smaller, thanks to unscrupulous manufacturers who are reducing pack sizes by up to a quarter while upping the cost.

A Which! report out today revealed something that very stoned people have suspected all along. Munchies have been reduced by 16%, Twix has shrunk by 14% and Birds Eye beef burgers have been reduced by a whopping 4 burgers in a pack.

Furniture polish, dishwasher tablets, pasta sauce and even Liquorice Allsorts have been similarly miniaturised, although the prices stay as big as ever, with the burgers actually going up in price by 30p.

Richard ‘Crazy Legs’ Lloyd from Which! took a dim view, saying: ‘Shrinking products can be an underhand way of raising prices because pack sizes shrink but the prices don’t. We want simpler pricing so people can easily compare products to see which is the cheapest, and for special offers to be genuine.’

Over half of Which! users said they would prefer higher prices rather than this incredible shrinking skulduggery. Give us back our crappy Birds Eye burgers, you monsters.

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9 comments

Mad H.

The Birds Eye burgers one is purely as a result of removing all traces of horse from the product

Been happening a couple of years now, where have Which?!&"(_%! been shopping all this time?
Cheese has done this, used to be a 400g packet, now it's often a 350g.
The best was my old washing liquid which after shrinking proclaimed itself as having 'gorgeous value' or some such pointless slogan.
There ought to be legislation. If supermarkets and manufacturers can boast of bigger packets and cheaper prices then they ought to be forced to show shrinking sizes and when they add a few pennies on to the price.
It's not that it's happening, I don't mind that, things are tough, costs are rising due to fuel prices and bad farm yields.
What pisses me off is the fucking sneaky ass way that they go about it, like a child not telling their parents that they broke the best ornament, instead they hide it behind the sofa and hope that no-one notices.

But what about Mars Bars?
WHAT ABOUT MY MARS BARS?
They've got smaller since I was a kid. They've shrunk from being the size of a large house brick to something that resembles a flaccid cock.
In fact, the whole 4g that they've lost means I feel so hungry that I'm going to wither away and die.

I'm not sad enough to be bothered to read the whole article, but do they consider the rise of the poundshops, and the supermarkets shoving their suppliers' arms up their backs to produce £1 packs? They may well cost a quid, but they won't contain as much as their previously full size offer.
But Haribos can't hide behind that. Their price goes up whilst the pack size goes down from 200g to 160g. And Seabrooks crisps drop from 32g to 25g a bag. Frankly, hanging's too good for them.

It's basic inflation. Prices go up or products get smaller. Lots of research suggest meeting price points and shrinking items is perceived better than increasing prices.
I'm surprised they don't advertise the heath benefits. But then the problem with shrinking mars bars is that people now just eat two instead of one.